Rensselaer Union, Volume 6, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 September 1874 — INDIANA GOSSIP. [ARTICLE]

INDIANA GOSSIP.

A Unitarian church was organized at Hobart recently with thirtysix members. A large brick cooper shop is under contract at the Michigan City prison, and 200,000 brick are now being delivered at a cost of $7 per thousand, to build it. Straton Virden, a prominent citizen of Chalmers, Wnite county, was struck by lightning and instantly killed while feeding his hogs, Saturday before last. Justice Clark, of Winamac, recently sent a man to jail for whipping his wife. How is that for interfering with the innocent amusements of the people ? A boiler explosion occurred at Monticello, Monday of last week, in the warehouse of McCollum, Taylor & Hamlin. Damage] to building and fixtures about SI,OOO. Nobody hurt. Howling wolves come boldly up into the streets of Fowler o’nights and keep the inhabitants awake with their serenades. And yet this would be preferable to an everlasting thrumming upon a wheezy piano by pantalettcd maidens. The Lafayette Courier says that Judge Hammond “won for himself the highest encomiums of the bar by the clear and logical settlement of the points at issue” in a suit to set aside the case of the Valley Kailroad Company vs the Bloomington road, which he recently presided over in that city. Says the Fowler Herald: “There is a high degree of excitement in the central and western part of the county about some variety of wild beast that has been playing add, havoc among domestic animals in the vicinity of Sugar Grove. It has been seen frequently for the last three months, and seems to le becoming more bold and ferocious daily. It is estimated that it has destroyed S3OO worth of stock within the last three months. We mention: One yearling and one two year-old cplt, one calf and quite a number of hogs, for John Ross ; four calves killed and one fatally injured for Mr. Hoover; and many calves, occasionally a yearling, and any number of hogs for Mr. Sumner, and sundry of his tenants. * * * The animal is described as of a dark dun color, with a dark stiipe along the back and down the shoulders,.small erect ears, about seven feet long, with a long tail and a brush of long hair at the end, powerful limbs, making enormous leaps of twenty feet as it runs. Its tracks measure four and a half by five and a half inches in size, having'been measured by quite a number of persons. \,Of the large number who have seen it, all think it must be larger than a lynx, and from the absence of a tuft of hair on the tip of its ears, also the . ears being smaller Than those of a lynx, it is probably an American panther, or else an animal that has escaped from some menagerie in some more thickly settled part of the country and has made its way jnto the thinly settled part of this county.”

Fifteen or twenty counties organized during the present week and put Independent tickets in the field among them Posey, Vanderburg, Hancock, Stciiben, Dearborn and Newton.— lndianapolis Sun. We heard a gentleman complaining the other day, about lhe drouth having affected his corn crop. He reported that the y ield on his place would not be more than fifty bushels per acre! Can such things be and yet not ovccome our vision like a summer cloud ?— Fowler Herald. The Cass County Agricultural Horticultural and Mechanical Association’s Fair commences next Monday, September 7th, 1874, and continues six days. Five thousand dollars incash premiums are offered. Half-fare rates have been made on all railroads for carrying persons desiring to attend ; also, foijreturning, free of charge, all articles on exhibition. Secretary has our thanks for complimentary tickets.